


In which I ramble about found families.

by Eastonia



Series: East's Zutara Week Prompted Worldbuilding and Headcanons [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Airson, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, FireDad, Found Family, Gaang (Avatar) as Family, Gen, Headcanon, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Worldbuilding, Zutara Week, Zutara Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 09:11:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20061562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eastonia/pseuds/Eastonia
Summary: For ZKWeek 2019 Mentor.Also sneaky entry for ZKWeek 2017 Soulmates. Because I'm all for mentors becoming inadvertant parents. And I also really like platonic soul marks.(Finally something somewhat in-universe.)Also I want to make Firedad and Airson a tag. I mean we have Dadko and Mumtara already.





	In which I ramble about found families.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt me with an AU and a Zutara Week day I missed!
> 
> @eastonia-blog.tumblr.com

A soul mark AU world build (ft mentors as parents.)

  * Okay, so some soul marks you’re born with. Some only appear after the fact, sort of like a confirmation of a realisation. Your soul marks are all contained in one thin strip on either your left or right wrist, a bit like a tattooed-on bracelet. There are 3 colours: platonic partnership, romantic partnership, beloved parent/child (which the Air Nomads also called esteemed mentor/favoured charge).
  * The marks don’t change, but the colours _can_. Sometimes someone can have an entire string of platonic marks and then suddenly one day one of the marks could _switch_ and then you have your one romantic partnership soul mark.
  * (No one is just born with their romantic partnership soul mark.)
  * If you hurt your soul partner enough, you can cause the mark to develop a line through their mark, as a sign of destiny refused. If your soul partner hasn’t given up on you then the line doesn’t strike through the mark the entire way.
  * Neither Zuko or Azula are born with Ozai’s mark. Years later Azula will claw at the bear (just a bear) in the colour that denotes ‘beloved parent’. (Years before she’d follow in her father’s footsteps and tattoo a flame breaking free (to represent Ozai) onto her wrist – Zuko will eventually find out).
  * (Zuko’s one comfort when Ursa disappears is that her theatre mask mark doesn’t truly fade).
  * Katara was born with Sokka’s double crossed fish hooks, and both of her parents beloved parent.
  * She also has the rune for ‘hope’ etched onto her wrist, it’s weird because it constantly holds itself somewhere between platonic and beloved _child_.
  * (Sokka wakes up one day during Toph's scamming sessions and realises his Katara mark has shifted to more of a beloved parent hue.)
  * Aang wakes with all his soul marks formed – and the mark of his esteemed mentor, Gyatso – faded. (He doesn’t pay much attention to the mark of a crashing wave holding itself between esteemed mentor and platonic partner, after all he’s never seen a romantic soul mark before, so he assumes that Katara must be his.)
  * In the Caverns below Ba Sing Se a couple of things happen. First, Katara and Zuko discover their mutual marks (a blazing sun for Zuko, a leaping koi for Katara) and then upon his turn, a line grows halfway down the lines representing each other (it’s from Katara’s end).
  * Zuko is so, so very hurt when he catches a glimpse of Iroh’s wrist and sees a scarred dragon in the colours of beloved child on his uncle’s wrist. He finally realises that he has two parental love marks, his uncle’s dragon-on-a-teacup has joined the other marks on his wrist.
  * (And he’s so confused, unlike Katara’s which has a halfway line, Iroh’s is unblemished.)
  * On the day of the Black Sun as he makes his decision, new marks pop up. A fan and a wolf both in the usual platonic colours. But what confuses him is the character for ‘balance’ (that he thinks means the Avatar) and the etching of a badgermole are both in the colours of _beloved child_.
  * Aang knew it the day the line erased itself from the Blue Spirit mask. _His esteemed mentor_ had found the path back to them.
  * Later, the Gaang will sit down and realise that both Katara and Zuko have the same ‘beloved child’ marks. (And that they might match Aang and Toph. Aang isn’t too surprised, he knew Zuko was one of his marks.)
  * Later still, way down the line, they’d realise that their (sun and koi) mutual platonics both have started to take on a romantic hue.


End file.
